Net calling is easy to use as home phone


When I heard about the first products that let you make voice calls over the Internet, it seemed like a thoroughly geeky thing to do.


The technology was called VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol - and you could use it to talk all night with a friend in Bardstown or Barcelona without paying long-distance charges.


But it worked only if you each had the same software installed on your computers, if you had a combination headphone and microphone, and if you didn't mind an occasional pause in the conversation that made your friend sound like a CNN reporter calling on a satellite phone.



I couldn't think of anybody I wanted to call that badly. I remember thinking,

"This thing will never fly until they make it as easy as picking up and dialing your home phone."

Well, they just did. VoIP has become the hottest item in the telecommunications business because it's now as easy to use as the phone in your kitchen or the one in your pocket.


The market research firm IDC says more than 10 million residential phone customers are now using VoIP services, and it predicts that the number will grow to 44 million in 2010.


For a flat monthly fee, VoIP uses your high-speed Internet service to convert your voice into data packets, send them across the country or around the world, convert them back into an audio stream and deliver them to a standard telephone. These days a computer doesn't need to enter the equation at all.

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Industry veteran Vonage and eBay-owned Skype are among the most well-known names in the business, but there are also dozens of other VoIP providers, including Louisville-based Lightyear Network Solutions. While Vonage sells its service through retailers and packaged with hardware devices, Lightyear markets through a network of independent agents, including individuals and businesses such as Louisville's SEC Custom Computers.


Earlier this month, Lightyear demonstrated its newest VoIP device at the monthly meeting of the Kentuckiana PC Users Group. The highlight was a video call from the group's meeting room on Brownsboro Road to a Lightyear representative in Iraq.


Lightyear's Xtreme VoIP device is a small blue box that comes with its own phone number. I used an Ethernet cable to connect it to my home network, then plugged in a cheap corded telephone.


That was it - no software to install and no configuration routine to follow. Once the box had time to identify itself on the Internet, I had a dial tone.


The sound quality of the calls was much better than I expected. There was no indication that I was talking over an Internet connection rather than the Bell system's cables.


The service worked fine with my DSL broadband service, though Lightyear recommends using it with the faster Internet service offered by cable-TV companies. Cable broadband also offers the potential for more cost savings because VoIP users might give up their BellSouth or SBC phone service. Some areas let you transfer an existing phone number to a VoIP service.


Lightyear's VoIP product matches many of the services that local phone companies offer. It has voicemail, call waiting and forwarding, Caller ID and Caller ID blocking and three-way conference calling.


The most intriguing feature is the service's portability. When you unplug the Xtreme box, your phone number can travel with you. The box works in a hotel room, a vacation home or anywhere that you can plug into a broadband network.


Like other VoIP systems, Lightyear's Xtreme requires electrical power to go with a cable connection to the Internet. That's one reason to think twice about dumping you standard home phone service. When the power fails at your house, so will the phone.


Source: Ric Manning, Louisville Courier-Journal